Here we go!

So...today marked the end of a wonderful (not EVEN kidding) week of professional development before the start of yet another school year. Our hallways fairly hummed with the promises of all this upcoming year can be. Morale is high and it's obvious from the tired yet happy smiles that my coworkers are feeling much the same as I am.

We are ready.

On Monday morning, schools all over our region will open their doors and students of all ages, of all walks of life, and of all talents and abilities will come inside the hallowed halls of learning.

Some will come eagerly, and early. Others will barely breeze into a chair before the final tardy bell. Still others will come quietly hopeful. Maybe last year wasn't quite their year, but they are thinking this one just might be. Maybe their situation changed over the summer and they are ready for the routine of school to provide a needed respite. Maybe they just miss their friends, their coaches, or US - their teachers.

No matter how they come to us, we have to be ready. 

Ready for each student and whatever circumstance may accompany them. School should be a place of comfort and of safety and I am so proud to work with those who feel as I do. Despite teen attitudes, eye rolls, and the occasional "blessing out," we find happiness in what we do.

Real happiness.

In the today's culture, where our validity seems to be centered on things we accumulate: money, possessions, relationships - I'm afraid that we're missing out on what the real meaning of happiness is.

"Things" bring temporary elevated levels of adrenalin (not necessarily happiness) that tend to plummet as soon as we adjust to our new acquisitions.

So that new car, new clothing, new house, new relationship, may very well bring pleasure and contentment and certain levels of pleasure...for a time. But when "the new wears off" we need something deeper, more permanently grounded within our souls, if we are to be the joyful creatures that God intends for us to be.

I learned a long time ago, from a close friend, to practice the law of attraction. We can draw people, circumstances, and even certain "things" by daily practicing optimism, outward signs of joy (smile, even when you don't feel it), and - most importantly - exercising that small mustard seed of faith.

Happy people attract happy circumstances. That doesn't mean that illness, hardship, and tragedy never cross their path, but it does mean that they are not shaped by the circumstances of their life. Instead they shape their life and bring meaning to those circumstances.

I'm thinking happy thoughts today. Practicing the law of attraction. Surrounding myself with like-minded people. Cherishing the relationships in my life that mean more than worldly wealth ever will. Clinging to a faith in God that has never failed me.

And looking forward to another nine months of learning and laughter with some of the finest of our next generation.

We are ready.

Here we go!

The beauty of friendship. TRUE friendship.

The older I become the more appreciative I am of the true girlfriends that fill my life.

While I'm not old, I've certainly lived long enough to recognize the futility that comes hand-in-hand with senseless competitiveness and desperate struggles to be everything you think your friend (or neighbor or sister or cousin, or even a perfect stranger) is.

As I cruise through mid-life I am thankful for the great group of women who surround me. They praise my strengths and tolerate my idiosyncrasies. They cry with me and laugh with me. They know I'm not perfect and yet they're okay with that. My secrets, hopes, and dreams are buried in the vaults that are their hearts. My name is safe on their lips. Time nor miles can separate true friendship.

The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that  they can grow separately without growing apart." - Elizabeth Foley

It hasn't always been this way and - because of that - I am so thankful for this stage in life. It takes a while to see the world and our place in it with clarity. It takes even longer to understand that no one can fill our exact place, just as we cannot even begin to fill someone else's. We are unique, God's Originals.

The reality is that we, as women, tend to wear veneers, whether thick or thin, that shield our vulnerabilities and present only the "pretty" side of ourselves. The side we want others to see. The side WE choose, not necessarily the portrait of the woman God created us to be. Some years ago I became very aware that most women are not so much unlike...me. We come in all shapes, all sizes, all makes and models, but the essentials are very familiar.

We need to be loved, appreciated, respected...all of these, for sure. But what we need more than anything is TO love. To love without boundaries, without limits, without expectations. To truly love is the greatest gift and women are abundantly endowed with it. We are nurturers by nature and, yet, so often we fail to nurture and support one another.

We are a sisterhood and our strongest ally is most likely standing right by our side. But she may be too shy, too opinionated, too angry, or too - goofy even - to approach. Even so, I have a feeling that her heart beats much the same as mine does. I'm quite sure that her arms shelter someone much as my own do, and that her eyes drip tears of joy and sadness and pain...exactly as my eyes do.

"In everyone's life, at some point, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit." - Albert Schweitzer 

She has hurts and disappointments. Pride and shame. Strengths and weaknesses. Irritating habits and endearing characteristics. She is my sister. My friend. My neighbor. The fellow teacher that I pass in the hallways each day. She is the young girl that sits in my English class and she is the elderly woman that I see weekly at church.

I may not always know her name.

But I pray I always see her.

She's not all that different from me.

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot often arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been created to do. After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house." The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years I have been able to put beautiful flowers on my table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace my home."

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.

For all my cracked-pot friends (AND for me) - whether I know your name, just recognize you by sight, or quite possibly have not even met you yet - here's to remembering to smell flowers on OUR side of the path!

Here's to you, Steve Jobs!

Funniest thing, Steve Jobs started following me on Pinterest today. It's funny because, well you know...

But honestly, it's great that it occurred just as I was trying to summon up the courage to pick this blog back up. Sometimes we take ourselves so seriously (preaching to myself here:) that we let valuable opportunities, connections, and maybe even relationships pass us by because we're too concerned with image rather than with what's real beneath our image.

The truth is that I lost the joy of blogging a long time ago. I used to blog faithfully and loved every single, tortuous minute of it. It was a great escape, a place to log thoughts, ideas, feelings, and life happenings. Some days I wrote about things that touched my soul, other days I chronicled funny events from the day. Some days were all about poetry and, still others, were nothing more than a collection of pictures that spoke to me.

And then I became a teacher and began to teach writing to a bunch of high school kids. I went in SO STINKING CONFIDENT, just knowing - knowing - that I was going to single-handedly inspire the next generation of writers.

It didn't take long for me to tuck my tail and head for shelter and - for me - that shelter was somewhere far, far away from the blogging world. My confidence in my own abilities, talents, and gifts was severely tested inside those first few years of teaching. I quickly realized that writing according to TEA standards was nothing like writing from the heart - probably the one thing I wanted most to impart to my classroom of budding writers.

Instead I had to learn to staunch my own creative urges in order to learn to teach writing in a whole new "barbaric" way. I was faced with the challenge of teaching students how to write expository and persuasive essay writing within the confines of a stringent, strangely forulaic rubric that included a length of only 26 lines.

It doesn't take an English teacher to tell you that an essay is so, so much more than 26 lines. It's about the "soul" that is discovered through writing. 26 lines leave very little room for soul. Instead, it is too often one-dimensional and lacks that certain something that has readers

Here's to you, Steve Jobs!

Funniest thing, Steve Jobs started following me on Pinterest today. It's funny because, well you know...

But honestly, it's great that it occurred just as I was trying to summon up the courage to pick this blog back up. Sometimes we take ourselves so seriously (preaching to myself here:) that we let valuable opportunities, connections, and maybe even relationships pass us by because we're too concerned with image rather than with what's real beneath our image.

The truth is that I lost the joy of blogging a long time ago. I used to blog faithfully and loved every single, tortuous minute of it. It was a great escape, a place to log thoughts, ideas, feelings, and life happenings. Some days I wrote about things that touched my soul, other days I chronicled funny events from the day. Some days were all about poetry and, still others, were nothing more than a collection of pictures that spoke to me.

And then I became a teacher and began to teach writing to a bunch of high school kids. I went in SO STINKING CONFIDENT, just knowing - knowing - that I was going to single-handedly inspire the next generation of writers.

It didn't take long for me to tuck my tail and head for shelter and - for me - that shelter was somewhere far, far away from the blogging world. My confidence in my own abilities, talents, and gifts was severely tested inside those first few years of teaching. I quickly realized that writing according to TEA standards was nothing like writing from the heart - probably the one thing I wanted most to impart to my classroom of budding writers.

Instead I had to learn to staunch my own creative urges in order to learn to teach writing in a whole new "barbaric" way. I was faced with the challenge of teaching students how to write expository and persuasive essay writing within the confines of a stringent, strangely forulaic rubric that included a length of only 26 lines.

It doesn't take an English teacher to tell you that an essay is so, so much more than 26 lines. It's about the "soul" that is discovered through writing. 26 lines leave very little room for soul. Instead, it is too often one-dimensional and lacks that certain something that has readers going back for second - and third - reads.

Pascal said, "When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and we find a man." Soul writing is human. It is a person with ideas and emotions who captures our attention - not because he or she has all the answers - but rather because their writing is authentic, honest, messy, and even contradictory at times.

Somewhere in those first few months of teaching I allowed that spark of creativity to become dampened by the reality of what teaching meant. I still strove for creativity in my classroom; I just borrowed others' creative ideas instead of trusting my own. I still spent long, taxing hours pouring over lesson plans; they "ticked all the boxes" but still left me feeling as if there were more I could do.

More I could be.

I forgot how to write soulfully because I was so busy learning how to "teach" writing.

Over time, I have tried to pick up blogging again, simply because I love to write, love to play with words and emotions and events and - in the end - have left a stamp that is uniquely me upon the blogosphere. I failed. More than once. Okay...more than twice.

And that it okay.

I recently found a Pinterest project that has been calling my name ever since. If is a homemade rustic headboard with tiny words up in one corner that say "Awake my soul." I intend to make that headboard and stencil those words.

I want my soul to be fully awake. Then - and only then can I share my best self with those around me.

My life is full. I'm a wife, mom, a Nana, a writer, a teacher, a caretaker of too many animals to name, Thoreau's owner; a woman who has been transplanted from the big 'ole Dallas Metroplex to the rural community of Naples, TX.

Otherwise, now known as "home."

So even though I know Steve Jobs is not really following me on Pinterest, here's to his wisdom - both in business and in life - that is certainly quotable. Today was a timely reminder.

This is my story. My adventures. Written and recorded with no rules.

Awake my soul.

Here's to you, Steve Jobs!

Funniest thing, Steve Jobs started following me on Pinterest today. It's funny because, well you know...

But honestly, it's great that it occurred just as I was trying to summon up the courage to pick this blog back up. Sometimes we take ourselves so seriously (preaching to myself here:) that we let valuable opportunities, connections, and maybe even relationships pass us by because we're too concerned with image rather than with what's real beneath our image.

The truth is that I lost the joy of blogging a long time ago. I used to blog faithfully and loved every single, tortuous minute of it. It was a great escape, a place to log thoughts, ideas, feelings, and life happenings. Some days I wrote about things that touched my soul, other days I chronicled funny events from the day. Some days were all about poetry and, still others, were nothing more than a collection of pictures that spoke to me.

And then I became a teacher and began to teach writing to a bunch of high school kids. I went in SO STINKING CONFIDENT, just knowing - knowing - that I was going to single-handedly inspire the next generation of writers.

It didn't take long for me to tuck my tail and head for shelter and - for me - that shelter was somewhere far, far away from the blogging world. My confidence in my own abilities, talents, and gifts was severely tested inside those first few years of teaching. I quickly realized that writing according to TEA standards was nothing like writing from the heart - probably the one thing I wanted most to impart to my classroom of budding writers.

Instead I had to learn to staunch my own creative urges in order to learn to teach writing in a whole new "barbaric" way. I was faced with the challenge of teaching students how to write expository and persuasive essay writing within the confines of a stringent, strangely forulaic rubric that included a length of only 26 lines.

It doesn't take an English teacher to tell you that an essay is so, so much more than 26 lines. It's about the "soul" that is discovered through writing. 26 lines leave very little room for soul. Instead, it is too often one-dimensional and lacks that certain something that has readers going back for second - and third - reads.

Pascal said, "When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and we find a man." Soul writing is human. It is a person with ideas and emotions who captures our attention - not because he or she has all the answers - but rather because their writing is authentic, honest, messy, and even contradictory at times.

Somewhere in those first few months of teaching I allowed that spark of creativity to become dampened by the reality of what teaching meant. I still strove for creativity in my classroom; I just borrowed others' creative ideas instead of trusting my own. I still spent long, taxing hours pouring over lesson plans; they "ticked all the boxes" but still left me feeling as if there were more I could do.

More I could be.

I forgot how to write soulfully because I was so busy learning how to "teach" writing.

Over time, I have tried to pick up blogging again, simply because I love to write, love to play with words and emotions and events and - in the end - have left a stamp that is uniquely me upon the blogosphere. I failed. More than once. Okay...more than twice.

And that it okay.

I recently found a Pinterest project that has been calling my name ever since. If is a homemade rustic headboard with tiny words up in one corner that say "Awake my soul." I intend to make that headboard and stencil those words.

I want my soul to be fully awake. Then - and only then can I share my best self with those around me.

My life is full. I'm a wife, mom, a Nana, a writer, a teacher, a caretaker of too many animals to name, Thoreau's owner; a woman who has been transplanted from the big 'ole Dallas Metroplex to the rural community of Naples, TX.

Otherwise, now known as "home."

So even though I know Steve Jobs is not really following me on Pinterest, here's to his wisdom - both in business and in life - that is certainly quotable. Today was a timely reminder.

This is my story. My adventures. Written and recorded with no rules.

Awake my soul.

Just a couple of city folk with a dollar, determination, and a dream...

I'll never forget the day.

We were city folk in search of the elusive dream.

It was late August and the weather was hot, the humidity was high, and our expectations were wilting. He wanted one thing. I wanted something else.

We were house-hunting. Really, land-hunting as it were.

We traveled down the highway, double-checked the map once we passed yet another county line sign, and finally turned right onto an old dirt county road. Great big, beautiful trees created a shady canopy and it was enchanted.

And then we pulled up to the gates of the property and promptly grew silent. There were just no words. Granted, this was before Tiny Living and Tiny Houses became trendy, but - even so - the long-empty log cabin on stilts surrounded by tall, knee-high grass and backed by a large out-of-place observatory in the sky - was both fascinating and a horror to behold.

We were city folk and we were a little bit awestruck and a lot overwhelmed.

Yet we let a bit of our hearts there that first day. Enough that we went back, and then went back again. Three days later we'd made an offer and two weeks later we were the proud, yet clueless, owners of 43 acres that included lots of woods with overgrown trails, a log cabin on stilts, a working observatory, and an unfinished shop. Quite the combo. Quite the adventure.

We were city folk who had purchased the dream.

Where others saw dirt and filth, we saw a chance to establish my dream of a B&B. Where trails were overgrown, we saw future grandkids exploring nature at its finest. Where acres and acres were barren and parched, we saw pastures with horses and yards with free-range chickens.

We were city folk and we'd lassoed the dream.

Transplanted Gal Revealed

I chose Transplanted Gal because it fits me so well in this stage of life.

I became a country gal after several decades of being strictly a city chick. I began a career of teaching at 42 instead of 22. I went from being deathly afraid of dogs to being THAT parent of two of the most precious canines on the planet. I moved away from the only church I'd ever attended and began the difficult transition into a new one. We bought a cabin on stilts, for crying out loud, and called it home for 3 years. We built our dream while we built our house.

I'm truly a transplanted gal.

I hope I'm a transparent one as well.

I would love for this to be a funny blog. I love those. The truth though - MY truth - is that as much as I admire and am attracted to funny people, I'm not that much of a funny person. That's probably why I feel the most accomplished when I make my husband laugh. It's such a great laugh and, knowing that sound was emitted because of me...well, I just love it.

What I lack in funny I try to make up for with insights - my take on life, if you will. A place for me to lay my truth out on the proverbial table. Fundamental truths that have shaped me, and continue to shape me. Truths that I stand by, even when they are not the most popular or trendy.

This blog is to chronicle the ups and downs, the pretty and the not-so-glamorous, the trials and tribulations of this thing called life.

“She worked her toes into the sand, feeling the tiny delicious pain of the friction of tiny chips of silicon against the tender flesh between her toes. That's life. It hurts, it's dirty, and it feels very, very good.” 

― Orson Scott Card, Children of the Mind